Thursday, 23 June 2016

I know you just come here for tourist advice. Well, I had a little bit of time in Edinburgh recently, and made the most of it.

On the chilly morning, before driving further up north, I walked until I saw an interesting tower. Well, once I'd seen it, I had to go there. It turned out to be the Nelson Monument in Calton Hill.

And you can climb it! It's a fairly strenuous spiral staircase, and a fantastic view.

Here's my photo. It's been severely dressed up with Snapseed, the app I use to fix photos that are too dark or whatever. I climbed to where that man is.

See the big ball on top of the tower? It's partly obscured. The ball has a real job. At 1pm every day, it gets hoisted up, and drops. That's a visible signal to ships at sea, important for navigation. At least, it was important, back before we had GPS navigation. But they have restored it, so the ball drops again! I was there way before 1pm, so I didn't get to see that.

From up there I could see Holyrood Castle, Arthur's Seat, and Scottish Parliament. And I got to spot lots of birds (birdwatching is a cool holiday hobby, it gets you looking around properly).

Saturday, 11 June 2016

One of my favourite things... Demonstrating at craft shows! It's tiring, but the buzz of people getting inspired is hard to beat.

I worked for Michelle at Mixed Media Art at a Picture to Page in Cranbourne, and a lovely time was had by all. While Greta showed off the GelLi printing, I was demonstrating Art Foamies, together with Gelatoes, and stamps from Dina Wakely, and from Carabelle. Splendid fun, I made tags, and used some to fill our board with one for each colour scheme - then gave the rest away! I hope that means our happy customers have a starting place for using their new goodies.

Here's our sample board, with a tag for each colour set of Gelatoes.

And this ended up being my favourite tag of the day. This Carabelle stamp set is just simple, abstract shapes, but we use every trick in the book to make them look awesome!

Still in Scotland... I had part of a day free while Frank was at work, and I had a car. Well, I never want to waste a day, so I took off for a drive. Lorraine recommended Glamis Castle. And it was an amazing day. No photos inside the castle, it's actually a private (rather gorgeous) home...

But here we see the best bit, an oyster catcher, who has decided that the best place to nurture eggs is next to a frequently-visited castle. The staff roped the area off, to give this family the best chance.

I seem to have left a gap in this blog. Then I felt bad about it. I find that *I* like to read my blog, because that where I put my fun photos.

I had a visit to Scotland! It was for a sad reason - my father passed away, and I went for the funeral. But, it was a time to see my brother Frank, and also, see some of Scotland.

I thought it was very impressive that, with the level of tech available now, I could decide to travel on Tuesday, and be in the air on Wednesday, with all accomodation and services booked ahead. I even had a map showing me how to walk from the bus to my Edinburgh hotel, and another just in case I wanted to walk from there to the castle.

I arrived late in the day in Edinburgh, jet lagged of course, and stayed he might there before driving to Blairgowrie. Good choice,as it turns out.

I could see the castle from my Edinburgh hotel room. Nice.

I hired a car for the trip, and had a hellish drive around Edinburgh, trying to get safely to the Forth Road Bridge. I made mistakes, there was at least one closed road, and I just wasn't familiar with the place. Still, got out soon enough, and decided that wasn't so scary. So, I'm not afraid of any of that stuff any more. Interesting note - my car was a manual. If I hadn't been driving a manual here, I'd have been really, really stressed out.